Manlii v Julii Game 17

Game 17 – Byzantine Era 2: Maurikian Byzantine

Maurikian Byzantine (Alec 271 pts) v Christian Nubian (Gordon 270 pts)

Major defence 580 CE (ADLG Big battle, 26-Apr-2023).

Battlefield Effects: None

The Plan (penned in advance of the battle) 

This is a Roman Major Defence against the Nubians, so as the Roman player I can let Gordon take the initiative to earn his three Prestige Points.

My challenge is going to be the up to eighteen impetuous medium camelry units that the Nubians are allowed, which will all have the Panic ability against my mounted units, given them a +1 to the die roll.

In order to counter them I’ve chosen to go big on heavy spearmen which I’ll endeavour to stick in front of Gordon’s camels; I’ll manoeuvre my cavalry round to take on whatever else he brings to the table. Then I’ll just wait to see what he does, a draw or a win, it’s all the same to me.

That’s the plan!

The Battle

 As my Maurikian Byzantine army was a well commanded mixed infantry/cavalry force I wanted a reasonable amount of terrain on the table but not too much. I was hoping to be able to use my superior command abilities, combined with the Nubian lack of command, to be able to get on flanks. 

Gordon started by choosing four terrain pieces and seemed intent on closing the battlefield down as much as possible so I chose a coastal flank, to may be give my infantry something to work along and a road, whilst hoping to move a couple of Gordon's pieces to favourable positions. It didn't work out too well for me in that respect but I wasn't too unhappy with the end result, the rocky area at the bottom of the picture below is a gully.

I deployed two cavalry commands on my right, my infantry in the centre and another cavalry command on my left. Gordon deployed his Nubian camelry and cavalry on his left and two infantry commands in his centre and right, each composed of 50/50 medium spearmen mediocre and bowmen.

I wasn't particularly happy about seeing all camelry directly opposite my cavalry but hoped to slowly bring my Skoutatoi heavy spearmen across to face at least some of them. It was looking like it was going to be a difficult match up for me, I had far fewer numbers of units and his camels were going to be a difficult challenge. My only big advantage was going to be that I had seven command points to his three plus his camels were impetuous, so difficult to control. I was going to have to find a way to take advantage of that superiority.

The situation after deployment was as below, as usual my army is on the left of the picture and Gordon's is on the right:

Being the invader Gordon went first, advancing across the board, but in particular on the flanks. He double-marched one group of medium camelry forward on his left and advanced his light horse into the gully, rapidly exposing my ambush as the bluff it was.

I advanced along the whole line and also attempted two things:

• on my right I sent forward two light horse Hun horse archers in an attempt to break up Gordon's solid line of impetuous camelry; and 
• on my left manoeuvred my cavalry to take on Gordon's extreme right flank which consisted entirely of infantry bowmen. I considered that if I was going to break through anywhere it would be against that group even though it would mean charging bowmen with medium cavalry.

In Gordon's turn he charged three of his camel units forward and I decided to stand with my heavy cavalry as I could break up the charge into two groups, elsewhere I evaded. I lost both combats.

End of turn position:

In my turn I continued to advance my heavy spearmen forward and to the right. In the combat phase the melee continued as below:

Next turn. in came most of the rest of the camels, stupidly, forgetting my plan to lure the camels forward in small groups, I stood my ground with my cavalry; I have no idea why really - in one brief moment of indecision/stupidity/memory fart my whole game plan went up in smoke! 

On Gordon's other flank he advanced his infantry forward into bow range but did little damage in the shooting phase - this meant they were within charge range too. In the combat phase I didn't actually do too badly, but it was only going to be a matter of time. The situation at the end of Gordon's turn was as below:

So, in my turn I charged in on my left flank, even throwing a couple of light horse Cursores into Gordon's extreme right hand bow unit; I figured the overlap would see my through. In the centre I advanced some of the heavy spearmen and on the other flank all I could do was grind it out.

The left wing attack was everything I hoped it would be, one unit of bowmen went down immediately and the others took hits too.

End of turn position was as follows:

In Gordon's turn he began to advance a unit of medium spearmen around the flank of my infantry line. All I had to stop them getting to my camp was my reserve unit of infantry bowmen. Would they be enough?

On Gordon's right, seeing his line of bowmen going rapidly under he began to turn a couple of his next group of infantry towards the right.

On Gordon's left his camels continued to grind me down but I was still hanging on in there. The turn ended as below.

In the centre I moved my bowmen forward to ZOC his advancing medium spearmen, my only hope was to cause some shooting casualties on his unit to give me the edge when he charged in - I succeeded.

Elsewhere, only one of Gordon's right flank bow was still alive and on my left my units were beginning to melt away.

End of turn position:

In Gordon's turn in the centre he charged in with his medium spear mediocre (carrying a wound) against my bow unit, in the subsequent combat phase my bow unit won, causing another wound. On the left Gordon continued to apply pressure, his lack of command CPs at least was helping me by slowing his ability to take advantage of the developing holes but he was rapidly moving to a position where he could get behind my infantry line.

The position at the end of the turn was as below:

In my next turn I finished off all Gordon's right flank bowmen and my reserve bow unit in the centre destroyed his medium spearmen. I finally got a couple of my heavy spearmen in the centre into contact with Gordon's medium spear mediocre. On my right I decided to abandon contesting the flank and pulled back with all the light horse Cursores and heavy cavalry that remained alive in preparation of forming another back stop line.

At that point, as it was getting close to midnight we called time, . 

The end of game position was as below. Casualties were 16 for me and 20 for Gordon, I was closer to destruction however as my breakpoint was 26 while Gordon's was 36.

A close-up of my far left (below) shows the high spot of the battle from my point of view, Gordon's bowmen had paid the price of getting too close to the Byzantine cavalry, all being wiped out.

In fairness, despite my left wing success, the game was going Gordon's way. What stopped him winning was purely running out of time; if we'd have played a standard-sized ADLG battle he probably would have got over the line first.

Gordon's comments

 Pre-Game

Nubians are invading Roman Egypt.

Byzantines will be lots of good cavalry and/or good heavy infantry. Nubians have lots of camels. I have never used camels, so decide to be the Nubians.

Alec will have a number of very good generals with his 7 command points. I will have 3 command points and hope for high die rolls.

I will take a large number of impetuous camels and some heavy and medium cavalry to provide a more manageable reserve and/or strike force. Two commands of cavalry: one with elite heavy cavalry and small number of camels and the other with more camels and two medium cavalry as a reserve.

The Nubians have to have a number of bowmen, who will be vulnerable to Alec’s infantry and cavalry unless they get lucky. However, they have to have some medium infantry, either impetuous swordsmen or spearmen. I will take spearmen to deter his cavalry and because I have enough impetuous troops. I plan to put all the infantry in two commands of equal bow and spear, so that I can deploy them alternately with the spear to provide a deterrence to cavalry charges and the archers might keep the cavalry at a distance anyway.

I hope to avoid his infantry and focus my cavalry and camels on his cavalry. I am relying on the panic the camels will cause. Given relative speeds that sounds feasible. By the time the infantry meet I hope to have done enough damage to his cavalry that he is on the ropes and/or in danger of being outflanked.

 The game

Alec closed down one flank with deep water (The Nile). That worked for me given the huge disparity in command points. I went for some rough terrain to give my bowmen somewhere to hide/lurk, but it all ended up in the wrong place. A gully seemed a good idea.

Deployment for once seemed to work for me – I was able to match his with exactly the troops as I had planned. However, I did not deploy my spear and bow alternately on my right flank, as I had originally planned. In the centre I also did not do that, but felt that I would be able to delay contact here until it was not a problem for me – a slow advance to prevent his centre helping his right flank would do the job.

Games starts and as attacker I move first. I push both my cavalry commands forward on my left, slowly move forward in the centre, and a bit more quickly on the right. Despite my bowmen facing his they are medium and light cavalry and I have some reasonable hope of hurting them with shooting before they hit me.

On my left my camels do damage but not enough or quickly enough. The elite heavy cavalry go in and don’t do well, but do provide support or remove his support, to help the camels. The camels suffer from his armour – the number of times I win by one point!

The centres slowly close, which works for me.

My bowmen don’t do much damage on my right and his cavalry hit me. It gets messy very quickly and I lose the flank. However, I am able to turn some of the spear to face his victorious cavalry, so I am less concerned than I could be. I also move one unit of bowmen from the central command to help.

At the same time the centres are starting ot clash. His bow destroy one of my spear, but my archers cause him some damage and when his sprea hit mine the combat looks about even.

Unfortunately, although by now my left flank is making big inroads against his cavalry it is midnight and we call it a draw. Time, the thief of victory!

 Post-Game

Terrain worked well for me in the end as it gave a large open space for me to make use of my large number of horse and camels. My large number of units then left little room for manoeuvre for Alec.

Overall, my plan worked with my cavalry concentrating on his and slowly grinding them down. His extra command points weren’t wasted as he was able to rally troops which kept his left flank in being. My lack of command points wasn’t such a big deal early on as I just needed to get the camels in charge range and let them go. Keeping them in relatively large blocks reduced their vulnerability to being picked off. What did count against me was the inability to rally once I got into contact.

On my right flank I should have deployed alternate spear and bow unit, as I had originally planned. It might have held the cavalry and my reliance on the relative vulnerability of medium and light cavalry was too optimistic.

Overall, I was probably beaten by time in this game.

An interesting game for the use of camels and the big game really feels like a battle. 

Result

Draw - one Prestige Point to the Manlii